The NBA regular season consists of 82 games played over the course of approximately 5.5 months.

Throw in a month of preseason training/games and potentially 1-2 months of post-season play, and we have a recipe for a long season (and fatigued athletes).

A ton of resources continue to be poured into predicting injuries via monitoring training load.Since maintaining strength/power and fitness levels throughout an entire NBA season is crucial to success, it only makes sense than to determine the minimal effective training dose to maintain strength/power and cardiovascular adaptations in order to minimize the amount of 'extra' training load experienced by athletes in the weight room or with extra conditioning.

An area of research that may help guide determining the minimal effective dose of training required to maintain strength/power and cardiovascular adaptations is in the "detraining" literature...

This quote, attributed to late business management guru Peter Drucker, came to mind as I was reading a recent article in the British Journal of Sports Medicine on preventing injuries in elite sport.

Ideally, both culture and strategy interact; each positively influencing the other. In many scenarios though, strategy is given priority without much thought into creating a desirable "culture" among an organization.

This is can be a problem...​Why?​1) People are loyal to culture, not strategy.2) Culture provides resilience in tough times.3) Culture is more efficient than strategy.4) When strategy and culture collide, culture will win.5) Strategies can be copied, but no one can copy your culture.​*From this slide-share

​How can culture play a role in reducing injuries in elite sport though?

​The photo above (from this paper) provides a nice visual representation of how culture can impact every level of an organization's injury prevention model. The author writes,

"We should also be aware, that the culture of an organization as a whole, and the psycho-social influences on each individual player within it, can have a modifying effect on the model at every stage."

Think about it from a medical and/or performance staff standpoint...

How much easier would it be to collect training load data if you work in a culture that values building [genuine] relationships with players? I don't know about you, but so far in my young career it's been much easier asking a player to wear a Catapult device when I have a solid relationship with them and they know I'm doing it in their best interest. A team can have the best load management system in place but if the culture doesn't support this, either by an entire organization/staff buying into it AND players having a basic understanding of why information is being collected, then the system (read: "strategy") will lose when it collides with culture (see #1 and #4 above)

What about working in a collaborative culture? How awesome would it be if every working environment in elite sport was a collaborative culture? ESPECIALLY between a medical and performance staff, which is often divided??? Returning to sport, one of the injury prevention pyramid levels depicted in Figure 1 above, should be a collaborative effort and include the athlete, coach, medical and performance staff, etc. If culture doesn't support collaboration among an organization, how likely is collaboration going to happen when returning an athlete to sport?

What about a culture of excellence? Where the little things matter?Think about how awesome a pre-practice warm-up would be. Or getting players to actively take part in their recovery. Or getting enough sleep. The so-called 'little' things...

Basketball players are notorious for not wanting to lift weights... therefore, if a culture isn't created by the individuals working as a part of the performance staff that demonstrates/educates the value of consistent strength and conditioning, how likely are players going to be excited to take part? Think about the value S&C can have when the benefits of consistent participation in S&C (and recovery!) are known by every player and person in an organization. If anything, it allows for much easier player buy-in.

Of course, talking about the importance of culture is much easier than actually establishing a solid culture.

In my opinion, this is where hiring the right people comes into play.

It's like what Jon Gordon says in his book, "you have to get the right people on the bus before you move the bus."

Bringing together the 'right' people to an organization can play an incredibly important role when it comes to creating a culture. You can define "right" however you'd like, but just be sure not to discount the maybe-not-so-obvious such as a growth-mindset, enthusiasm, etc.

As I continue to inch closer to my goal of becoming a part of a high performance staff in the National Basketball Association, I'm thankful to have been exposed to the impact a culture can have on the success of an organization.

Cheers,

​TS

“Today, not starting is far, far worse than being wrong. If you start, you've got a shot at evolving and adjusting to turn your wrong into a right.But if you don't start, you never get a chance.”